


the hangman's lime

by harrietscats



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Child Death, Clone Wars, Gen, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Original Character Death(s), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rape Recovery, Sexual Slavery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-05
Updated: 2017-01-05
Packaged: 2018-09-15 00:16:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9211457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/harrietscats/pseuds/harrietscats
Summary: "The force that through the green fuse drives the flowerDrives my green age; that blasts the roots of treesIs my destroyer.And I am dumb to tell the crooked roseMy youth is bent by the same wintry fever."--Dylan Thomas, "The force that through the green fuse drives the flower"The Clone Wars drag on. A Jedi Master fights to keep herself sane. A Knight tries to ease the burden. All through this torment, a shadow looms on the horizon, strikes out at the Jedi through the very thing that the warrior monks of the floundering Galactic Republic hold most precious: their younglings.The Order hangs on a precipice: capitulate to Separatist demand, become the isolated peacekeepers of old? Or risk the lives of their venerated Masters, their Force-bright children, and fight the growing darkness.





	1. the first death

Tennuutta sector - Kem Stor Ai system - Tyrosh IV 

Coordinates (100, 077, 241)

 

* * *

 

 

The Angel of War descended upon Tyrosh IV in a blaze of red and blue. 

She settled amongst them like a thread through needle. No one could afford to notice her incursion, lest a Jedi or clone fall in battle as penance for their inattention. How many times had it been whispered? “ _ A clone is replaceable. A Jedi is not.” _  Most Jedi, this long into the war, had come to that unfortunate conclusion; it was a despicable notion that mocked everything they stood for as an Order. The Angel—who truly did despise the inside joke that had blown out of proportion—would go so far as to proclaim that such thoughts were perverse to the Code itself. She knew her clones, new and old. Dead and alive. She could never forget such a brief yet vibrant flicker in the Force. “ _ They are people _ ,” she argued vehemently (passionately, more puritanical Jedi Masters would venture) to any who would argue otherwise. “ _ To deny these clones their humanity is to turn them into nothing better than living droids, and make us no better than Separatists.” _

And none could find it in themselves to argue with her. The Angel of War was known for her silver tongue; her lectures were eloquent, and the younglings and Padawans who frequented her classes on astrocartography and philosophy found themselves compelled to listen. Masters found themselves locked in endless debate with the demure Master from the otherwise unassuming moon of Brijesha. But while her elocution was famous, it was her elegance that came to mind when her name was mentioned. 

Since their time on Jedha, the Jedi were known as peacekeepers, humble monks who used violence as the absolute final resort. But the Angel, she strode through the Temple with a tilt to her aristocratic chin, a glide to her step that made walking seem as effortless as floating, a smile that would light fires in even the coldest corners of the universe. But she was still humble, obeying the Jedi mandate of “service before self” with a serene bow and polite smile. 

That was why she had gained her misnomer, the nickname she hated so badly. The Angel of War.

And the Angel had taken that name, become a General for the Grand Army of the Republic, out of necessity. For the hidden battle that lurked beneath the innocuous surface of ‘us versus them’. The Angel of War went wherever she was needed, and at the moment, it was Tyrosh IV who called to need.

Tyrosh IV was a planet of opposites and extremes. Highlands gave way to tropics, which gave way to needle-thin mountains as sharp as the most dedicatedly honed blade, to boundless deserts riddled with sand worms, and thick forests full of poisonous marsh gas. The population of this planet was mainly indigenous, a band of familial hunter-gatherers who lived off of the land and warred with clans of different ecosystems. The Angel had been there many years ago, on a mission with her very first Master, shortly before he died. But they had stayed mainly with the mountain clans and the clans of the expansive rain forests. This was her first time in Tyrosh IV’s desert.

Though if you asked her, all deserts looked the same.

She stood at the edge of the opened LAAT/i, hand wrapped in the support strap, eyes roving over the familiar-yet-really-not shifting sands overtaken by droids and clones alike. Her braided crown of ultramarine hair was unmoved in the harsh crosswind, and her colorful robes whipped around her legs as if caught in a storm. A painful sense of déjà vu choked her, but she quashed it. Her fellow Jedi were elsewhere, north of their location, their mission different than hers. She could not abandon them to failure by being uncentered. 

She turned to her Padawan—no, no longer a Padawan, but a great Jedi in his own right. His dark, coiled hair was shaved down on the sides, leaving an affectionately young mop of curls that swayed in the wind. His robes were far more subdued than his Brijeshi Master: brown and black and maroon, the shadow to her light. The comparison was not lost on their clone troops. The Angel and her Shadow. Never more than a step away. 

She was proud of how far he had come. 

He understood what she was about to do, a mute “ _ Please take care this time, Master.” _ passing through their still intact training bond as loudly as if he had spoken the words aloud. She didn’t need to reach out to touch his hand to feel his concern. No, she could feel it palpating the Force, a storm breaking over Kamino: violent in its upset, but quick to end. So she offered what she assumed was an affirming smile, rose-colored eyes alight with joy. 

“I leave the air assault to your capable hands,” she said to her former Padawan, back to the open door of the lartie. Before the clone closest to her—Hash, she knew—could ask the question forefront on the two-hundred-second’s minds, she situated her weight backwards, released the strap, and jokingly saluted the newest batch of clones standing beside her former Padawan as gravity took control.

And thus the Angel began her fall.

Descent from one of the affectionately named larties was always an adventure. Most times there was a new pilot, or batch of recruits for her to frighten with her antics. She could hear their confused, worried shouts on the blaster-concussed air. It was very unJedi-like, she knew; her former Padawan had long since adjusted to his former Master’s hobby of leaping and bounding from flying crafts with the grace of an Alderaanian swan, so much so that now he merely shook his head and commanded the troops onboard whist she took to the surface and cleared a path. 

And she was very good at clearing paths.

The dry air of Tyrosh IV’s arid landscape made breathing difficult, but not because of the lack of moisture in the air. She had not stepped foot upon a desert since her descent upon the red baked planet of Geonosis along with the strike team of 212. Where was her Master struck down? Kilometers—no, parsecs—from here, in a distant memory, in an arena soaked with blood. She pushed the grieving flood to the back of her mind as she landed in a roll, one lightsaber alight in hand as the motion completed itself. 

The other wasn’t needed yet. 

For all of her fuss during her formative years as a Padawan, the Angel only used her second lightsaber when the situation called for it. Many a Jedi knew that once the Angel of War’s second lightsaber flew to hand, the tide of war was close to turning, be it out here in the battlefield, or in a Temple salle. At that point, those with experience knew to run, or to sit and watch her take the battle with a serene smile and nary a hair out of place. She represented all the Jedi held dear—and had lost in the war. To watch her work was to imagine a time before the Order had hung up the mantle of peacekeeper, the elegance that went unsurpassed with each thrust and parry and in-air acrobatics of her ingrained Ataru. 

The droids that fell before her did not know the Angel of War, and they would not survive to tell tales of her. She was only glad they were not Grievous’s infamous MagnaGuards; the last time she had gone up against one, she nearly lost her eye once again. She instead gained a second scar to shadow its sister along her eyebrow ridge. 

She was not keen on learning how to use her… unique Force ability to see as well.

Her singularly activated lightsaber ascended in a flawless upward stroke to decapitate a tinnie foot soldier; it repositioned itself, almost on its own, and speared through the housing of two more, one right after the other. She wasn’t surrounded, but the situation was beginning to warrant the weight of her second weapon. Not yet. She was in control. She effortlessly flipped over a faceless clone commander’s head—her clone commander, who she had unconsciously found in the fray like a ship finds shore—and landed atop the tinnie foot soldier’s larger cousin, pink blade piercing through blue durasteel. The Separatists had not thought to shield their droids with cortosis yet.

Thank the Force for little mercies.

She leapt off of the metallic carcass of her unnumbered kill to land beside her clone commander. CT-7722, who had come to her with the Vod-given name of Zach, tipped two fingers in greeting before firing point blank at another advancing super battle droid. 

“The Angel descends and Tyrosh is saved,” he joked, pausing in battle to regard his General. 

Where the Kaminoans embodied a sterile sort of elegance that he had grown to know as the baseline aesthetic, the Angel of War (who was really known as Jedi Master Athanyal Hu in more formal and civilized circles) was controlled elegance, a woman who possessed the ability to descend into battle and escape without a hair harmed. Of course, other bits of her might be scorched, or bleeding, but her hair would still be held back in its meticulous array of deep blue braids, and her always-mischievous pink eyes would be serious around everyone but that bloody Padawan of hers. Zach swore that whatever selection ceremony went on with sorting Masters and apprentices was all but thrown out the window in choosing the now-General Binre as the General’s apprentice. The boy was as mad, if not madder, than the woman he learned from. 

Athanyal threw her lightsaber, controlled its curve with the Force and slashed through a stream of clanking, mindless droids as tan as the skies above. Sweat beaded her brow and slicked her tunic to her back. She believed Geonosis to be behind her. How wrong she was. Each droid was her former Master’s murderer. Each blaster bolt was meant for her. Every time one fired, it was every bit of ingrained training that kept Athanyal from flinching, from expecting the hard impact of shoulder against hers. Her Master died for her to live, how cruel was that? She knew she wasn’t the only Padawan to experience the loss of her Master before her training was complete, but to experience it twice? The wound was still raw. It bled freely now with each grimace and blaster bolt that came her way. 

She did not have the luxury of reflecting on the past; it was her duty to hold this desolate stretch of desert, to repel the droid army and give her Jedi compatriots time to capture the Separatist General Yanto Venai. If there was one thing Athanyal was prideful about, it was her ability to stand undefeated and surrounded by the corpses of thousands. She would not be unharmed, that much was true, but she was the one that the Council sent in to hold the fort. She would be damned if she failed because her emotions got the better of her. 

Ducking beneath a hail of blasterfire, Athanyal surged upward with either lightsaber crossed in an ‘X’ to spear through the offending super battle droid; planting her foot upon its carcass, she used her own momentum to release her blades, flip overhead, and deflect blaster fire away from her clone commander. She liked him, thought him to be a friend. She would be lying if she said she would feel nothing but acceptance if Zach died. 

“General!” he called. “Rollies at your ten!”

Landing on her feet in the automatic offensive stance for Ataru, lightsaber in left hand raised vertically with elbow tilted and locked in offense, the second held horizontally across her body in defense, Athanyal regarded the rolling droids that careened down the sand dunes at her and her platoon with annoyance. She looked left, then right. There was a path cleared to a rock formation to the right of her that would provide ample cover for her clones. 

She cast a look at Zach and his men—she didn’t want to risk any more casualties than necessary today during this engagement. They could provide cover fire for her, and pick off tinnies and super battle droids as she handled the—she did a quick mental count—six destroyers that rolled unhindered through the soft-packed sand. 

“Zach!” she shouted, divesting attention for only a few seconds. “Get your men atop those rocks! Provide cover—”

Athanyal felt it a hairsbreadth before it happened—a tingling in the back of her skull, the Force whispering  _ Jump, Jedi. Jump now or die _ . So she did, dominant lightsaber down between her legs to catch the stolen blade of another. Her less dominant caught a stray blaster bolt across her torso, and intercepted a second blade. 

She knew those blades. 

Landing in the Ataru defensive, both lightsabers held in a delicate reverse grip, she smiled charmingly up at the bone-carved face of Dooku’s pet. 

“General,” she greeted amicably, “I would say it’s a pleasure, but I’ve been trying not to lie of late.”

General Grievous, cybernetic watchdog formerly of Kalee, let out a hacking laugh, two stolen lightsabers spinning in tight, defensive arcs. He towered over her by roughly a meter, enormous bulk dwarfing her. At her rear, the droideka’s began to unfurl like unwanted flowers, transportable shields engaging. 

“General Hu,” he wheezed, eyes slitting in what she could only call battle lust, “your reputation precedes you.”

She bore her teeth in a smile. “I only hope it’s a good one.” 

Athanyal leapt first, sinking into her tutelage, the Force, the ebb and flow of battle. General Grievous was what one could describe as a violent foe, if one had lost all ability to articulate Galactic Basic. Dooku’s pet fought like a hellhound; he fought like Dooku, fencing Makashi deeply overlaid with twice-adapted Jar’kai, the violence and control of a form similar to Mace Windu’s Vaapad. Athanyal was forced on the defensive, teeth bared in a grimace against the Kaleesh warlord. 

“General,” she bit out, ducking beneath a double blow to her skull, kicking at his decorated face plate, “may I say, your fighting style is quite sloppy. Honestly, I think the younglings I mind can do better, and they’re three.” The General let out a howl of rage, answering the Angel of War’s jibe with the splitting of his hands and arms, lower appendages going for two more lightsabers in his belt. Cyan and green greeted her, and she retreated, reversing grip and footing, pink blades crossing and lying perpendicularly before her in her rarely utilized Soresu. 

The Angel of War—she was not Athanyal Hu right now, no where near close enough—had been trained in multiple lightsaber kata since she was old enough to wield a training blade. Under her Master, she had begun to specialize, first in the Shii-Cho that all younglings were taught, then in Ataru—whose acrobatics carried over into whatever form she operated within—and finally Jar’kai. The ancient two-handed dueling technique had been looked down upon, deemed unpopular amongst senior Padawans. No one practiced in explicitly, except during strict salle applications with a Battlemaster present. But she had shown her merit under the indomitable and strong willed Virin Qoshu. 

Right now, all of her training was failing. 

“Well, what do you know?” The Angel performed a tight aerial above Grievous’s head, arms straining against the force of each double blow the warlord lay upon each magenta lightsaber. She launched herself into another somersault, sending herself between both pairs of lightsabers, slashing at two blades, deflecting the others. “We’re almost equally matched now.”

“I look forward to adding your lightsabers to my collection, Jedi,” wheezed Grievous, torso twisting and clawed feet digging into the ground for leverage the droid general lacked. The Angel of War strengthened her stance, kept the sand from her eyes. 

The Angel bore her teeth in a feral—quite un Jedi—grimace. 

“Fight for them then, General.”

 

* * *

 

 

Grievous engaged with more fervor and hatred than he had previously. Soresu was a form based for evasion, self defense, one lightsaber. She lacked the strength that the droid commander did. Her matter was flesh; his was metal.

She disengaged, barely escaping with her arm intact, breath seizing through her nose and mouth, sweat beading her forehead and sticking her tunics and plastoid armor to her. A single strand of hair lay stuck across her forehead, dyed near black by her sweat. 

If any of her clones could see her now, wouldn’t they be shocked. 

“You’ve failed, Jedi,” hissed the droid general, four lightsabers rotating in complete circular arcs as he advanced. The Angel found herself backstepping, eyes squinted against the searing wind and sand. Grievous’s stolen lightsabers cut the sand before him, glassed it with their heat. “And now, you will die screaming.”

Grinning weakly, the Angel of War slipped easily into Shien, feet at hip’s length apart, non-dominant lightsaber held in reverse behind her, dominant held outstretched in an almost friendly greeting. 

“Really, General?” the Angel tilted her head mockingly to the side, in challenge. “I don’t quite believe that today is my day to die.”

Her savior descended like a Dagoban swamp lemur, green saber blade bisecting Grievous’s left arms in half before the cyborg could turn. When he did, howling and wheezing with rage, the Angel was there, the magenta blades intercepting Grievous’s last two in protection of her friend. Disengaging with a simple back step, the Angel of War held her dominant blade angled horizontally above her head, the lesser dominant one held behind her in Shien. She stood beside her rescuer, the crown of her head level with his sternum, chin held high. 

“It’s over, Grievous,” proclaimed her rescuer—and friend—lightsaber curved upward in the defensive Soresu arc he worshipped as sacrosanct. “Your armies are in retreat, the blockade is broken, and Masters Skywalker and Secura have the good General Venai in their custody.” He grinned wolfishly. “And you do happen to be down half of your arms.” He redirected his grin to the Angel. “You’re welcome by the way, Thanya.”

Athanyal Hu—also known as Thanya in intimate circles—didn’t have the patience to roll her eyes at her lifelong friend and crèche mate. “Oh, I had it under control,” she admonished affectionately. “And aren’t Jedi are supposed to be humble, Master Faelleon? I believe—”

She saw Grievous’s assault before her companion, a brief three-second flash forward into the Force that saved her skin. Pressing her shoulder into Kiellan Faelleon’s side, she shoved, half with the Force, half with the internal instinct to protect her own. He stumbled backward, surprised more than anything, unbalanced by Tyrosh’s shifting sands. Athanyal—Thanya, the Angel of War—tightened her grip on her lightsabers, calculated the odds of surviving the assault, and adjusted accordingly. 

To say that a lightsaber burn hurt was an understatement. It kriffing hurt. Of course, Athanyal had been less-than-cautious when it came to her training in the salles as a Padawan, but that was before she found the elegance in each motion of a lightsaber, and strove for that perfection. She would have almost forgot the sensation, had it not been for her overtly rambunctious Padawan. So the more-than-painful strike that burned straight through her tinted plastoid armor, her tunics, then skin and muscle, made her screech with it, but it gave her enough energy, enough power, to harness that pain, the upset, the ragefuryfearanger and  _ push _ . 

Grievous let out a caterwaul of alarm as he tumbled backward, into the sand, into his droids—growing more and more distant as they tumbled down one of Tyrosh’s many ravines. So powerful was the push, Athanyal felt herself fly backwards, into Kiellan’s waiting arms with enough strength to take the air from his lungs. They tumbled down Tyrosh’s sands, descent unstoppable. Athanyal lay limp in Kiellan’s protective embrace, dazed, and Kiellan was too addled to do more than ensure they did not hit anything too unforgiving.

With a pained grunt, Kiellan’s back took the brunt of their fall as they finally came to a stop at the very bottom of the ravine. He had curled around his crèchemate, tucked her head beneath his chin and wrapped both arms tight enough to crush her to him. Head spinning, he took in their surroundings. 

The ravines of Tyrosh IV were the only things each ecosystem had in common. Long before, in peacetime, they had been used as conduits of trade between clans. Now, they were littered with the corpses of clones and droids. 

“Well,” he sighed, “we never do things in halves, do we Thanya?” 

Beneath him, Athanyal laughed. It was a dry, joyless sound. He knew where her mind was, what was central on her mind. It too occupied him. The pair of them looked upward, where the sound of battle was distant. Hopefully, their mutual menace would not resurface.

But the Force was not that merciful.

Athanyal exhaled through her nose. Through the Force, Kiellan could feel his friend’s deep exhaustion, the pain she kept buried so well. For now, though, he would not address it.

“He’s not dead,” said Kiellan. He was dead weight atop her, a comfortable presence that served to ground her in the present. She tried not to savor the contact. “And ow, by the way.”

“No, he’s not,” mused Athanyal, before shoving him to his feet, swallowing the pain of separation that came with it. “And you’re welcome.”

“Yes, Thanya. Thank you so much for shoving us down this barren ravine in the armpit of the universe.” He reignited his lightsaber and gazed out toward the ravine floor, watching as six—no, seven—more destroyers came rolling their way. “You’re a conduit for trouble, Master Hu, that’s what you are.”

Athanyal let out a hissing laugh as she rose her wounded arm. It trembled, burned furiously for a few seconds, then fell limp. Hand spasming, her lightsaber almost followed; with reflexes honed over a lifetime, she lobbed her unlit pommel to Kiellan and managed to catch the one in danger of falling, before it fell to the sands. Clipping it to her belt, she caught her lightsaber in her right hand once Kiellan lobbed it back at her. 

It was always the kriffing left arm. 

“Will you be all right?” Kiellan asked, touching her shoulder in a horrendous show of personal attachment that—against all odds—warmed her heart. 

“It’ll be no different than when Master Qoshu decided on a "fun" retreat on Ahch-To,” answered Athanyal curtly. "I swear, I wasn't dry for months after that one."

She flexed her trembling fingers and attempted a standard two-handed blow, popular in most of the lightsaber forms she practiced. Already she could sense the abhorrent weakness in the afflicted joint. Grimacing, she modified her stance as the destroyers began to unfurl, lightsaber lying defensively across her entire body, from head to waist. 

“You’ll need this,” said Athanyal, handing her second lightsaber over to her crèchemate.

“You doubt my skill with one lightsaber?” joked Kiellan, the edge of a smile in his voice. Irregardless, he took the offered weapon, ignited it, and held both aloft in the opening stance of Soresu. 

“Call it a bad feeling,” retorted Athanyal. “I believe I’ll rely on Soresu this time around, thank you.”

“And what about Makashi?” The destroyers had unfurled, their shields had risen, and they were preparing to fire.

“Only if they get close.” Like Soresu, her skill with Makashi was just above average, if less so. Relying on her two weakest forms of lightsaber combat made her stomach turn uncomfortably, but as Virin Qoshu used to say: “ _ Each second is a new learning opportunity, Padawan mine _ .”

Of course, this was usually followed by Virin Qoshu's idea of fun. 

“I don’t believe I have it in me for any feats of athleticism today, Master Faelleon,” she quipped.

“What a relief, Master Hu,” said Kiellan, “I no longer have to fret about getting knocked out by you.”

Athanyal’s mutter of “One time.” was lost. The damned destroyers chose that time exactly to open fire. 

The first shots flew in rapid succession. Athanyal’s lightsaber rotated in defensive arcs of radiance that deflected without thought to accuracy. She knew that their greatest chance for survival involved her being able to Force push the lot of them over, or Kiellan getting close enough to spear them through the top. However, she highly doubted that the arrangement would allow for either of them to let up their protective spheres of influence for even a second. 

She felt Kiellan’s hurled thought of  _ Is it just me, or are they getting better at aiming _ before she even decided to contact her former Padawan. Reaching out in the Force, she felt for his unique presence, sought out his location to hers. She felt him tentatively push back, a teasing nudge in the Force that nearly drove her to distraction, the brat. Instead of answering back with playful banter, as was her merit, she merely sent a mental capture of her location across their bond, a silent request for help accompanying it.

The blaster bolt that burned through her right shoulder was nearly enough to bring her to her knees. The destroyers were set to kill, she knew. She was very lucky that the bolt had not struck any closer to her heart, or she would have orphaned her former Padawan as she had been orphaned. That was something she could not, in good conscience, do. So she rolled forward, leading with her—burning aching throbbing—shoulder, used her weakness as an advantage, and pushed with the Force, flattening the insectoid droids. Their shields collapsed, allowing Kiellan to make swift work of the powerful Separatist weapon’s weakness. 

It happened not a moment too soon. The Force spiked in warning behind her; she spun, too late to avoid the nipping blaster graze to the hip that drew blood and really did send her to one knee this time. Teeth bared in pain-fueled frustration, Athanyal left the floundering destroyers to be picked off by her her crèchemate, and turned to face the wall of tinnies and super battle droids that awaited her from behind. 

Immediately, she felt her spirits fall. The Angel of War briefly became Athanyal Hu, the beleaguered Jedi Master who was damned tired of fighting, who wanted nothing more than to bring her former Padawan around the galaxy as she had the privilege of being brought, who wanted to learn and teach at the Temple. Oh how she longed to see it again. How many months had she been away from Coruscant this time? Two? Three? Far too long to be denied the very nexus of the Force, of the Light. Damn Jedi propriety and practicality, she was homesick. She was going to die in Tyrosh IV’s desert, at the very bottom of this cursed ravine. It was a fitting bookend to the desert she should have died in all those months ago, but at least she would die fighting.

“We’re not going to lose Tyrosh.” When had Kiellan returned to her side? 

“No,” said Athanyal quietly. “No, we will not.”

With a patient, meditative inhale, Athanyal banished her negative emotions, her selfish thoughts, and sought for the peace and elegance that came so naturally to her, even here in this swirling morass of hatred and Darkness. Feet repositioned in the Soresu defensive, lightsaber held close enough to her face that she could feel the heat on her nose, back to her crèche mate, Athanyal Hu warily regarded her enemies, who surrounded her on all sides like akks to bleeding prey. 

Even though the droids had little concept of dueling, Athanyal Hu lowered the blade in an elegant sweeping motion, until it rested by her right hip, perpendicular to the ground.

“Makashi?” came Kiellan’s one word inquiry.

“They are getting a bit close for comfort,” she said.

“I do hope your reinforcements are coming.” They both studied the same formation, where all but four of her clone troopers remained alive. 

Athanyal didn’t voice any of her private thoughts, but she did think them:

_ So do I. _

Allowing that one selfish thought, Athanyal Hu cleared her mind with a calming exhale.

Jedi Master Athanyal Hu became the revered Angel of War in less than three breaths. 

On the fourth, the droids struck.

 

* * *

 

 

Darrin Binre was exhausted. No. That was an understatement. He was beyond exhausted. He was drained. Dead on his feet. No matter how dark his skin was, the harsh climate of Tyrosh IV’s desert was not doing him any favors. He could feel the inevitable sunburn lurking in the apples of his cheeks and his exposed neck. In addition to being sunburned, he was miserable, but he could cope with that. The remaining clones of his former Master’s battalion—the Hells-jumping 202nd—had set up triage outside of Kujana, the closest thing Tyrosh IV could call a capitol city. THey were quick and efficient at sorting clones and civilians down by injury. The most injured among the clones, he knew, would be shipped off to Kaliida Shoals in the Mid Rim for treatment. The lesser wounded—the men he passed stoically holding their pain in check—would be treated onsite, then shipped off on either  _ Coruscant Sky _ or  _ Autumn Tempest _ , to wait for the next inevitable engagement. Darrin wondered idly if any of the medics would treat his sunburn.

Then—less selfishly—he hoped that the battle group had not suffered grievously at the hands of the Separatists. They had not been expecting the droid general of all people—things?—to lead the invasion of Tyrosh IV from the ground. Apparently, his former Master, and Master Faelleon had sent him scrambling back to whatever dark crevice of the universe he had crawled out of. 

Thank the Force for little mercies.

As he weaved his way through the lines of silent, triaged clones with different personalities resonating like fire in the Force, Darrin thought back to what the clone medic said to him. The Shadow had been doing quite well with the mopping-up procedures in Kujana itself when the messenger had come, identical in his plastoid armor to the clones that surrounded him. He knew of the clones in his Master’s platoon in a most casual sense. He didn’t know their names as well as she did, but he knew this one to be a stranger, an interloper in the 202nd. He must have been a part of Master Faelleon’s group.

“General Binre!” he shouted, raising a hand in hello. His blue accented armor marked him as a medic. Immediately a thrill of fear ran down his spine; he reached out in the Force for his Master, but felt nothing but cold confusion, white hot pain, burning irritation, and palpably irrational fear.

Alive, then, he had concluded, and stuck in some sort of medical installation. Darrin stood, relieved, lightsaber in hand but at rest, and waited for the clone medic’s words. He knew that his Master was injured. He just did not know how bad. But she was cognizant to be angry and afraid, so that was something positive.

“General Hu’s requested your presence at the triage setup,” he said. There was a certain reserve to his voice, different than the cold concern of a regular clone, that had Darrin dictating the rest of the mopping-up to a clone under his command. He was ashamed to say that the clone’s name was escaping him at the moment. Thumbing the activator switch, the green blade of his weapon disappeared.

He was on his way to the triage setup before it was clipped to his belt.

Darrin passed the rows of unsuited clones and bare chested, lilac skinned Tyroshans, who were being treated with pressure pads, bacta, or—in the case of the more injured clones—were in the process of being ferried out of Kujana on hoverstretchers to the medevac shuttles that waited beyond. The dead were being dutifully treated to, either by the clones’s own way of taking care of their dead, or the Tyroshans—which included some sort of ceremonial smudging of the air with some pungent herb and a melodious lament that tugged on his heart strings, made him stop and observe. His Master would be proud; she loved learning about new cultures, new things in general, and he had a feeling that his Master was a mite distracted at the moment to observe these peoples’ funerary rights.

With a nod of respect to the spouse of a warrior slain, he continued on his path to his petulantly protesting Master. Passing clones on hoverstretchers, who were still aware enough to recognize their surroundings, nodded in respect to him. He offered his wishes that they get better soon as he moved through the flow. 

He was glad to see that neither of the stretchers he passed were occupied by his Master. For once.

If he was a lesser man, he would comment upon it. but he wasn’t.

“Oh, I’m fine! Stop fussing, Vett.”

Darrin exhaled, grinning faintly. There she was. It was never difficult to locate his Master in any healing establishment, be it the Halls of Healing back in the Temple, or some far flung tribal shaman’s tent; she was a horrific patient, and she made sure she vocalized every minute of her displeasure. 

Loudly. 

Slipping between two busy medics who took his intrusion into their personal space with a grain of salt, Darrin ghosted to a stack of crates where his Master was sitting, protesting treatment with the vehemence of a cornered mother gundark. She was stripped to the waist, colorful vests and tunics of teal, mulberry, violet, and pink gathered around her hips. The black plastoid armor that shielded her shoulders and arms had already been removed by the medic named Vett. Seated one cargo container higher was Master Faelleon. He had positioned himself so that his hands held his former Master by the upper arms, and legs framed her small frame. He couldn’t help the smile that came to his face; it wasn’t like Athanyal Hu to allow herself to be caged so easily. 

“Thanya,” said Master Faelleon evenly, “you’re making a scene. What will the youngling’s think?”

That seemed to pacify his Master, if only just. The mother gundark—the Angel—disappeared behind the stoic Jedi Master, who was  _ Absolutely not terrified of the syringe coming toward her neck, thank you very much, Darrin _ . It did look like his Master was about to fling the poor clone medic bodily through the sand, but Master Faelleon only offered a comforting squeeze to the shoulder and she relaxed. Just. 

Darrin instead raised his eyebrows levelly at the bacta patches and pressure pads plastered against his Master’s ribcage, her hip, her wounded shoulder. There was significant bruising to accompany the array of blood—aggravation of injuries still unhealed and injuries recently gained. Still, his Master’s hair had not escaped its elaborate array of braids, save one loose strand that framed her face from hairline to bloody cheek. 

He almost asked how she managed to look so elegant, even when she was shot full of holes. 

Again he refrained from it. He always managed not to ask.

“Masters,” he said patiently, with a respectful bow. “It’s reassuring to see the both of you unscathed from your duel with Grievous.” Feeling cheeky, Darrin continued: “Though, the medic who came for me said that you requested my presence, Master Hu.” He smirked, a mere twitch of the corner of his mouth. “I wasn’t expecting to find a pincushion waiting for me instead.”

Athanyal looked up at him, eyebrow rising up into her hairline. He could feel the muddle of drugs in her system, drowning her Force presence in chemicals and haze. She still looked imposing, storm cloud eyes glaring at him challengingly. For a moment, Darrin feared he had overstepped his boundaries. 

She smiled, wan and exhausted.  _ Brat _ , came the affectionate insult slung through their bond.

_ Corporal punishment is forbidden by the Code, Master.  _

_ Oh how I am wont to remember.  _

The medic—who his Master had called Vett—radiated fear and shock at his supposed insolence, deaf to the silent exchange. What did he expect, for Master Hu to take a hand off for his cheek? If that was the case, he’d be missing quite a few limbs by now. Darrin was pleased to see that Master Faelleon looked like he was holding back laughter.

“Well,” said his Master gaily, shifting uncomfortably on her throne of cargo containers. “Aren’t you full of cheek on this fine Tyroshan afternoon?”

“He’s even cheekier than you were with your Master,” quipped Master Faelleon. “Remember that time on Kantoria?” 

Athanyal groaned. “Don’t remind me. I may never recover fully after your little exploit.” 

“ _ My _ little exploit?” Master Faelleon grinned down at Athanyal, who in turn waved dismissively at him with a bared hand. Instead of the usual Sullust leather gloves he had grown up with his Master wearing, her palms were sunscorched, burned, and bare.  

“Yes,” she affirmed pleasantly. “That business on Kantoria was entirely your fault.”

“There are about three people who would agree otherwise,” said Master Faelleon. Winking at Darrin, he said: “See this, Master Binre? Your old Master is a menace.”

“Oh, I do know,” deadpanned Darrin.

“Careful, Padawan,” admonished Athanyal lightly, “Or I’ll have you running the perimeter of the Temple Precinct. Twice.”

" 'Padawan'? Sergeant, check her for brain damage. I think the General might be succumbing to senility."

"Let's make it four times." 

“The destroyers were plenty enough punishment, Master,” he said.

“Ah.” Her exhale leapt in octave to an invasive shriek as Vett took advantage of her distraction to begin sanitizing the filthy lightsaber wound. 

“You,” she exhaled once the beyond sainted clone medic was done with his work, “are a honorless son of a vetch, Vett.”

“I’ve been called worse by you, sir,” the medic deadpanned, though Darrin could hear the smile in his voice. 

“You’re giving my nicknames away, Thanya,” interjected Master Faelleon. “I feel hurt.”

“I haven’t even scratched the surface with you, Kiel,” bit out Athanyal. Exhaling, composing herself, Darrin watched as his Master banished her fear and discomfort to focus once more upon him, jest returning to her face in full force.

“Tell me, Padawan mine,” she began, grinning softly, “how did you like those destroyers I left behind for you?”

Darrin folded his hands demurely before him, smiling with his eyes instead of his mouth. “They were a welcome breath of fresh air, Master. I was beginning to get bored with those tinnies.”

He had responded to his Master’s call for assistance through the Force with as much speed as he could, cutting through rows of tinnies and SBDs, until he came to where his Master and Master Faelleon were defending Kujana with the ferocity of a pair of threatened garu-bears. He was dumbstruck for a moment, stuck watching this beautiful display of raw power for what seemed like ages—it was rare, after all, that he saw his Master engage in outright combat as the legendary Angel of War, and Master Faelleon’s display of the evasive Form III that rivaled only four other Masters—before leaping into the fray from behind with a well meant Force push, which eliminated the threat to either Jedi’s rear.

Not well enough, as it seemed. 

“Darrin.” There was a note of strained warning in her voice. Athanyal Hu was showing pain, a brief flicker of it. It was not dulled by the astute glare she leveled him with, or the thrill of alarm that struck through Master Faelleon’s face. Not now, Padawan, it said. 

Instead of confronting his Master further, he turned to the clone sergeant called Vett and Master Faelleon.

“How is she?” he asked. 

“ ‘She’ is fine, Padawan,” snapped Athanyal bitingly. 

“ ‘She’ needs some sleep,” quipped Master Faelleon levelly.

“ ‘She’,” said the clone sergeant called Vett, “is in need of some heavy sedation for medevac if she keeps this up.”

Glowering, Athanyal glared at the face of the clone medic. “I’m perfectly capable of getting on board of  _ Autumn Tempest _ under my own power.” She turned up her nose at the hoverstretchers that paraded past, empty and full. “If you think I’m getting on one of those Hells-damned contraptions, you are sorely mistaken, Sergeant.”

The stoic sergeant raised a threatening finger. “General, I will hogtie and gag you into cooperation if needed be.”

“Better than you have tried.”

Master Faelleon patted his Master’s shoulder once more. “He seems awfully serious, Thanya. I wouldn’t argue with the nice sergeant.”

Darrin smiled briefly. He liked this one. Most people were intimidated by his Master, despite her petite stature. She carried herself like a begotten queen in squalor, a poise of elegance that demanded attention and respect. To see someone talking to his Master as an equal was refreshing, to say the least. 

“Master,” chimed in Darrin, “perhaps that’s for the best. You haven’t fully recovered from Corellia, either. Master Vokara Che will want to see you as soon as we hit Coruscant.”

Athanyal looked affronted by the mere idea of going to the Halls of Healing for treatment. “I am not invalidated,” she said, regarding the three in turn with a dark eye. “Your concern is unnecessary. Thank you.”

“Didn’t Master Vokara Che offer in passing that if you did not see her in three weeks—damn the war—you would suffer her most severe of punishments she was allowed to inflict as chief healer?”

Master Faelleon only let out a low whistle in reply, and nothing more.

Former Master regarded former Padawan placidly. Darrin could see Athanyal calculating the days in her head, how long she had been away from the Temple. When she blanched even whiter, Darrin knew that he had won this battle. He had struck down the Angel of War with the mere threat of the Goddess of Healing, the Handmaiden of Death, the mighty Master Vokara Che. So with great reluctance—he would even call it hostility—Athanyal Hu brandished her arm to Vett, as if he were about to remove it from her, not administer the light sedative that she was so accustomed to receiving. Darrin caught the flinch at the hand that held her wrist; sheathed in faux-leather, he knew she could still feel. She was always at her lowest succeeding a battle. How she was coping with Master Faelleon’s gloved hands on her was beyond his ken.

“You’ve been around Master Faelleon’s Padawan for far too long,” said Athanyal blandly, accepting Vett’s steadying hand as she stood and readjusted her scorched and bloodied tunic. “She’s beginning to rub off on you.”

“Don’t remind me,” bemoaned Master Faelleon. “To think I had just gotten her broken in, before you came traipsing in with your shiny new Padawan.”

Darrin’s face heated as his eyes flicked to the remaining triage, instinctively searching out the exotic looking Yamajai Padawan. She must still be afield with her own clone battalion. Darrin instead offered a one armed shrug as Athanyal begrudgingly lay upon the aforementioned Hells-damned hoverstretcher (with only a passing assistance from Master Faelleon), eyes beginning to fog and dim with the sedative’s effects. He flashed a look at the man called Vett, whose Force presence echoed with guilt and underhandedness, then to Master Faelleon, whose eyes looked shadowed, but closed off. So Master Faelleon did have Sergeant Vett dope his Master more than was necessary. Don't get him wrong, Darrin always respected his Master’s boundary, the unspoken rule that she wished not to be touched after battle, that no matter what the injury, she wanted light sedation to coast the emotional overflow that she could feel like a reservoir pushing against a breaking dam. 

He never once asked his Master what it was like to be forever feeling, open to emotion like a faucet. He doubted he would ever have the courage to.

Instead he offered another lighthearted grin and stepped closer to where his Master was lying supine. 

“Yes, Master,” he said blithely. “Our conversations have begun to break through a barrier that, until now, I believed to be set for you and Master Faelleon alone.”

That stirred her out of her forced unconsciousness. Rising a hand, she muttered, “That’s it, six laps around the Temple Precinct when we’re back.”

He smiled weakly as her hand brushed his, neglecting to remind her that he was no longer her Padawan. His former Master was asleep, a fleeting smile on her face. At least she could sleep easy on their return to Coruscant. Master Vokara Che would have to deal without his Master’s quick wit for a while.

“I don’t pity the Padawan in the room with Master Hu when she wakes up,” remarked Master Faelleon as they watched two clone medics guide their injured friend away.

“She made the last one cry,” said Darrin. At Master Faelleon’s intrigued look, he continued: “At least, according to my friend.”

Master Faelleon didn’t have anything to say except:

“Only one?”

They shared a brief laugh, before sobering. 

“I’ll accompany her back to  _ Autumn Tempest _ ,” said Master Faelleon, already drawing up parallel to the clone medics, and the hoverstretcher carrying Darrin’s sleeping former Master as he said the words. He forced Darrin to half-jog to keep up with the Corellian Jedi’s longer legs. “I’ll have Imamu meet you and your battalion back in Kujana proper. Continue the mopping up procedures, then report back to the Tempest.”

“Yes, Master,” said Darrin. “May the Force be with you.”

“And you, Binre. Happy hunting out there.”

Darrin drew to a stop and set his eyes on the clone medic as his Master was finally spirited away by two other clones, and in the company of her lifelong friend. He never did get asked anything; perhaps Vett might know.

“Did General Hu mention what she wanted of me to you?” he inquired lightly. 

The clone was back where he had left him. Vett offered a shrug as he packed his bag, ready to spirit off to the next casualty in need of his assistance. 

“Not to me, no. But may I suggest you get this to your people at the Temple as soon as you get to a working comm relay.” His gloved hand was outstretched, proffering a datachip to the young Jedi. 

“Anything on here that I should be concerned about?” Darrin tried to sound nonchalant, but he could tell he was failing. The datachip felt heavy in his hand, like the core of a neutron star. “As her friend, I mean.”

“Yes, sir,” Vett was already moving on. “With respect, General Hu should be dead.”


	2. shadow of a sound

Military Hyperspace Lane between Tennuutta sector - Kem Stor Ai system - Tyrosh IV and Corusca sector - Coruscant system - Coruscant

Coordinates (unknown)

 

* * *

 

 

Darrin and Imamu lay together, staring up at the durasteel canopy above their heads. The scent of sex, of blood, of sweat permeated the air; after their debriefs, after Darrin stoically watched two clone medics intubate his former Master from the transparisteel barrier between him and the critical care suite, they found each other. Fell together. Imamu lay with her head pillowed on Darrin’s shoulder, hair fanning out like the blackest night sky, sheet pulled up to her chin. _Autumn Tempest_ was cold; Mandalorians were used to warmer climates, and the flagships of the Republic’s navy reflected that.

“They’re sending Master Faelleon and me to Ossus next,” said Imamu, once they had caught their breath.

“Oh?” Darrin looked down at the top of Imamu’s head. He ran his fingers through her dark hair, relished at the softness.

“Something about retrieving something from somewhere.”

“Very descriptive. Was that Master Yoda’s words? ‘Something from somewhere, you must retrieve. Very important, it is.’ ”

Imamu laughed. It sounded like chimes. It had been so long since someone had laughed. His Master barely cracked a smile. Hadn’t truly smiled since Tatooine.

“Dar?”

Imamu was looking up at him, dark eyes wide. Expansive. Inquiring.

“Sorry,” he said, kissing her forehead tenderly. “My mind went elsewhere.”

Her fingers touched his forehead, smoothed away the worry lines between his brows. It was soothing—Darrin felt the Force in the circling pads of her fingers, easing away his headache, his worry, his anxiety.

“She hasn’t gotten better, has she?”

Imamu didn’t have to specify. She never did. She read him like the open book he was.

Darrin didn’t have the words. Even now, he felt the weak agony leaking through to him, a trickle through a crack, a beautifully constructed dam holding back an ocean of pure torture.

His heart bled.

Athanyal’s heart bled.

“She hides it well,” mused Darrin. “She pretends, goes through the motions like a machine. She attends her Council meetings, she teaches her classes, she entertains the younglings and duels the Knights.”

“But?”

Darrin sighed. Running his hand absently through Imamu’s hair was meditative. It calmed him.

”She spends her nights meditating. The nights she doesn’t spend meditating, she dreams.”

Imamu’s hand found Darrin’s chest, right over his beating heart. Her heart beat so slow compared to his, even slower than his Master’s. Darrin covered her hand with his, looked into her eyes. He knew she felt his pain, saw it in the gathering tears in the corner of her eyes. His pain was but a shadow, and what she felt but a shadow of that.

They spoke no more that night.

Instead, they found solace in themselves.

 

* * *

 

 

Corusca sector - Coruscant system - Coruscant

Coordinates (0,0,0)

 

It was true that Darrin disliked the Halls of Healing as a whole. He liked the healers there well enough (his best friend was apprenticed there); it was the idea of being poked and prodded that got under his skin. It was one thing he shared in respect with his former Master, a subtle loathing of the Halls that had his pulse thrumming as he crossed the threshold into tranquility. Of course, he would never dissolve into histrionics like his former Master, if Master Faelleon was to be believed.

According to the man, Master Vokara Che got wrinkles every time the Angel of War graced her presence.

There were few healers on duty this close to midnight, and most of the external cots were empty of patients. A few recalcitrant Jedi lay slumbering peacefully, healing in mind, body, and soul. They were at peace, those he could see, though he had no healer’s mind to assess them any further. Even so, Darrin knew that these Jedi were in capable hands. So, blind to their pain, he sought out the one man he knew would help him locate his Master.

Off of the main atrium lay both the surgical suites, recovery rooms, and storage closets for medical supplies. With a respectful nod to the healer on duty behind the observation desk, he strode down the left corridor that branched off immediately from the atrium, his boots quietly echoing off the carpeted floor. There was a door slightly ajar further down the corridor; Darrin immediately turned toward the ajar storage closet, which was being propped open by the regulation boot of a healer.

Well, a Padawan training to be a healer.

“Teru,” whispered Darrin, nudging the boy’s ankle with the toe of his boot.

The Padawan in question was bent in a supply closet, seeking something out that escaped Darrin’s notice altogether. If he were not singularly minded at the moment, he would have inquired to his health, or to the object’s loss. But he wasn’t. There was one individual who had occupied the whole of his focus.

With a muffled curse, the Padawan known as Teru Summ offered his crèche-mate a glare over his shoulder.

“Don’t you have better places to be than here, terrorizing my patients?” he asked, hands planted on his hips. Teru Summ was an unimposing man of Coruscanti birth, all blond hair and lanky limbs that puberty hadn’t quite diminished. His Padawan braid was intricate, beads and fabric dotting the length of hair that sprawled past his left shoulder. His Trials would be soon. The war required more healers.

Darrin smiled disarmingly. “Don’t worry, Ter. I’m only here to terrorize one patient in particular,” he said, hoping his fear wasn’t showing. It would be useless to shield anything near his Master—emotions were her bread and butter. But fear would only antagonize Teru more, make him more recalcitrant .

Teru’s wan face drew tight with perturbation.

“Darrin, you can’t…” He ran a hand through his sandy hair. “She’s really not well.”

_Oh, I have a bad feeling._

“Surely you can divulge some details to me,” Darrin said diplomatically, bile rising in his throat. He had seen plenty on Vett’s datachip, the same datachip he’d turned over to Master Vokara Che for inspection. He was positive his Master was only breathing by the will of the Force alone at the moment.

Again, Teru ran a hand through his hair, torn between duty and friendship. He—like every Padawan—knew of the sacred bond between Master and student. The young healer gestured with a flick of the fingers for Darrin to follow him quietly.

“They had to call in the guard,” he murmured, mindful of the patients they bypassed on the way to the more private rooms. “She was sedated for all of five minute after she was brought here, and broke Ni’kan’s collarbone and Jor-Na’s nose, all while still half-conscious. Master Vanne had to intervene, with the help of Master Vokara Che, and even then it took three other healers.”

Now it was Darrin’s turn to be perturbed. “Master Hu has a way with the youth of the Temple,” he said mildly. “And the other venerable healers.”

Teru chuckled. “That’s a very diplomatic way of putting it. Master Hu almost got out of bed with that little escapade. Seven Jedi to subdue one Jedi!” He shook his head in bereavement. “I wouldn’t have believed it, if I hadn’t been tending to Master Kenobi’s injuries in the alcove across from her room.”

Well. That sounded like Athanyal all right. Teru removed three separate cartridges to load into a multi-use hypo and closed the door with a (as Master Windu would say) frivolous use of the Force. They began walking back the way Darrin had originally come, toward the atrium. But Teru did not escort him to the door, as he usually did. Instead, Teru led him past the healer’s desk toward the main surgical suites and private recovery rooms.

“Where are we going?“ whispered Darrin.

“Didn’t Master Hu ever teach you patience?” quipped Teru.

“I tended to ignore that lecture when it came.”

“I can tell.” They were deep within the Halls now, where incense was thick and comforting.

”Please.” Darrin wasn’t above begging. They had moved to stand before a shadowed room, full of _agony fear mistrust anger hate pain somuchpain_ , shadowing the banter and wit and golden light of Athanyal Hu. “How is she?”

“A lot of damage has been done,” said Teru patiently. “A lot of it’s gone unhealed for a while. You know Master Vokara Che didn’t want her back on the front after the state they found her in on Tatooine.” Teru saw the pale sheen to his friend’s face at the mention, the memory, of that planet’s name. But he was not Imamu. He could not read the agony within him. “But Master Vokara Che is positive she’ll make a full recovery.”

Darrin sucked in a bracing breath. “I hear a “but” in there, Teru,” he said.

Teru frowned with his eyes—he had a remarkable way of conveying everything he wished to say with his eyes alone—and leaned against the door to Athanyal’s room. “You’ll have to be quick about it.”

And he said no more.

Darrin too had a remarkable ability to convey his thoughts and emotions with his face. Pressing a hand to Teru’s shoulder, Darrin unlocked the door (manually, not like his showoff of a friend) and whispered, “I’ll be out in a quick minute.”

“You’d better,” retorted Teru. “I’m not reorganizing the medical depot because of you.”

Smiling in that brutally disarming way of his—the one that caved the hearts of crèche Masters and unknowing, impressionable younglings, Darrin darted into the closed-off intensive recovery room before the door had even slid fully open.

It was dark. The lights were low, both to facilitate tranquility and to regulate a patient’s circadian rhythm. It was a small room, cozy, no bigger than his room in the apartments he shared with Athanyal when they were both on planet. Quiet, subdued, the room was awash with the gentle healing currents of the Force. He could not discern the colors of the walls—all was a pale, calming shade of blue. There was a chair beside the bed, and in the bed was the object of his search.

Athanyal lay under the blankets, one bandaged arm bent over her stomach. Her blue hair lay unbraided like a halo on the spartan pillow beneath her head. There was violent bruising along her upper cheek and forehead, a faint line on her forehead showing where a wound had recently been healed. Someone had washed the blood from her skin and hair, but Darrin couldn’t tell who.

His former Master’s eyebrows were pinched in sleep, disturbed by something only she could see. She was too sedated to writhe, to cry out in musical Brijeshi for relief, to sob with an agony he was not allowed to bear.

He couldn’t help it; he reached out and held her hand.

And quietly, his soul wept with hers.

 

* * *

 

 

_Her soul sang. Even so long in captivity, it sang._

_It was a challenge now. For every man who took her brutally, for every uncaring lash of a whip across her back, they tried to take the Light from her. Tried to silence the song, her quiet part in the Force’s great symphony. “Such a prize, the Angel of War. I can hear the music you make: so beautiful, Jedi, almost as beautiful as you.” Her soul continued to sing. She hadn't spoken a word since she had been strung up like meat, enslaved._

_She used to scream. She remembered screaming as she was beaten._

_“Yes, good. Scream, Jedi whore. No one will hear you scream.”_

_“You sing no song but mine.”_

_And his song it was. The harmony within was discordant with agony, with corruption, with Darkness. It sowed dissonance in her soul, made her sob for relief. But none would come; she was assumed dead, blown to atoms by the catastrophic bombing of Antaar. The Council would not waste resources on a dead Jedi._

_Fingers on her chin. Punishing, bruising. Forcing her eyes up to gaze at unfathomable shadow._

_“Now, Jedi whore. Let’s_ —

Fingers touched her brow. Athanyal shifted, too blind with agony to see. Perhaps she hallucinated it, but there was a hand in hers, comforting. Strong. Familiar. _Hush now, Atha. Hush. It’s over now. It’s all over. You’re safe. I promise. Sleep now._

It's a mantra. She clung to it. To the thumb easing the skin between her eyebrows in slow circles. To the gentle shushes of _—_  

_Sleep, Atha. You're safe. He will not hurt you any more. Shh. It's over. Just sleep._

And she sinks again into—

_—lush forest, surrounded by her clone detachment, the corpses of tinnie foot soldiers and massive super battle droids. The battle was won, but she could feel change of another kind coming. It scented the air with fear, laying upon her a blanket so thick she feared she would collapse beneath it._

_“Master?” asked Darrin—when had he appeared?—mud soaked and chest heaving with battle fatigue._

_“I feel a disturbance in the Force.”_

_And then, rain._

_“Darrin, run—”_

And she ceases to dream.

 

* * *

 

 

Confusion. Anger. Anxiety. Irritation.

Athanyal did not stir as her emotions began to war for attention within her awakening mind. Muddling herself out of what she knew was a chemically induced slumber, Athanyal was slow to name the churning emotions souring her aching stomach. Was she going to vomit on the pristine deck of the _Autumn Tempest_? The ship was brand new, commissioned just three months prior. What a way to christen a Republic vessel, she idly contemplated, inhaling the sweet scent of long extinguished incense. It stirred memories of respite and peace in her mind, of meditation and laughter. She knew that smell…

It was a monumental task to open her eyes, a task full of pain and weariness that even sleep could not truly heal. That was why she didn’t do it. She merely extended her perception outward. The room she was sequestered in was dark, the bed was comfortable, and incense and memories thickened the air. That alone was enough to warn her that she was not on board the _Autumn Tempest_ —those beds were damned uncomfortable.

Athanyal turned onto her side, groaning as echoing, unhealed pain in her arm shot—hot and raw—from her fingers to her shoulder. Had she wrenched it after it was almost severed? Yes, she answered her own discomforted mind, rubbing the pinkening scar with absent fingers. After you dislocated it on Corellia a week before, silly Jedi. She was gathering injuries like strays the longer this war went on. A broken rib here, a concussion there, torn ligaments strewn without, and to cap it off: a lightsaber wound that wasn’t her former Padawan’s fault. It was becoming more and more difficult for her to project the absolute aura of strength and vitality before her troops and comrades. Athanyal feared that when the next engagement inevitably came, she was going to fall apart at the seams.

Suddenly exhausted, Athanyal somehow found strength to open a single eye a half sliver. Indeed the room was dark, as she had perceptively gauged through her eyelids. The scent of incense was thicker now, more pungent now that Athanyal was alert to it. The Force was muddied with confusion; reaching out to grasp it was like reaching out to grasp an eel. Athanyal slid off its surface like the opaque mind of a Hutt, or Toydarian.

That worried her.

Athanyal recalled being sedated as usual—it had become a normal part of her life after the First Battle of Geonosis, where she screamed and cried like a dying youngling for hours until someone (be it clone or otherwise) had put her out of her misery—with the full intent of waking on _Autumn Tempest_ , who was en route to Coruscant. The distinct lack of illumination in the room, of other noise beside the soft pitter patter of feet perusing the corridor outside was a disturbing timekeeper as to how long she had been asleep.

Oh, her former Padawan was going to have it when she saw him next.

Darrin was a…difficult boy, to say the least. Their partnership as Master and apprentice was not originally sanctioned by the Council; so many had died on Geonosis, so many were in the midst of mourning that tradition was forgone for a moment. But she knew Darrin’s former Master, Fifan Andala. He was a genial fellow who smiled more than was thought proper for Jedi to smile, but he was forgiven for such transgressions as a former crèche Master. His death was as hard, if not harder, to swallow. It had been an honor continuing the great man’s legacy.

But no death paled in comparison to the death of her second Master: Virin Qoshu.

She felt her center shift. She was drowning in blood on Geonosis, tears drying to her face as Kiellan frogmarched her to the medevac shuttle. The Force sung in warning, in grief, a lament that each Jedi and sentient being in the galaxy added a movement to. She was drowning in blood and grief and agony. She couldn’t go through that again, she thought once before, watching her Master’s body be commended to the Force by fire in the Halls of Remembrance. But here she was, in Geonosis’s sand, a Knight now but without the woman who had trained her, taken her in when no one else would. It was a grief that could not—would not—be spoken. It shielded everything in its distress. Groaning her emotional agony aloud, Athanyal curled onto her side and opened both eyes fully.

To the sight of a strange being enshrouded in black.

Confused, taking this apparition to be a healer here to alleviate the distress she must be radiating like a storm about to break, Athanyal lifted a weary head off of her pillow, willing her eyes to clear, willing the grief to go. How drugged was she? Surely they had administered only the usual dose? Or had Master Vokara Che placed her in such a deep healing trance so as to keep her out of trouble for the foreseeable future? It wouldn’t be the first time that happened. Athanyal couldn’t help the shadow of a grin that crossed her face. She was a notoriously terrible patient.

The Force thrummed with warning. Not grief. Athanyal blinked her vision clear. In the dim light of the private room, she saw a small apparatus clenched in a black-clad hand. The owner of said hand grunted out a curse as they surged forward—it was too dark for Athanyal to determine gender or race, nor did their choice of clothing help—apparatus revealed in a glint of light to be a hypospray—an honest to goodness spring-loaded hypospray—filled with a clear fluid.

_Danger, Jedi. The Force sang. Danger. Danger. Danger._

A centering breath was taken. Then a second. Jedi Master Athanyal Hu did not become the Angel of War so much as slip into the cracked veneer of her. Gathering her legs beneath her, Athanyal grabbed the edge of her blankets with both hands and wrapped the length around the assailant’s wrist. They cursed again, much louder this time. Athanyal—in a crouch now—tightened her grip on the wrist held in the blanket and yanked backward, throwing her weight against the bed and taking the assassin with her. With a yell of pain, the being crashed against the wall, hypospray clattering against the floor, forgotten for the moment. Athanyal pivoted on the balls of her feet and held up the blanket again to intercept a sloppily thrown punch.

Athanyal was not skilled in many hand-to-hand katas. It was a fault in her learning that she had begun to correct when she took Darrin as her Padawan. The one she knew with mastery was one best combined with the Ataru gymnastics that she knew her body would simply not tolerate. Indeed her body was protesting as it was: her vision was sliding from focus, her still-healing arm was leaden with pain, her newly acquired blaster wounds burned with exertion. Every breath was agony. But it was trivial; her sustenance was the Force. All she needed to do was get out into the main hall, find a lightsaber—

The punch to her face through the blanket sent her concentration spiraling to parts unknown. Rolling ungracefully off the edge of the bed with a thump, Athanyal was on her feet far slower than she would have liked, listing dangerously to the left as blood trickled from her broken nose and split lip. A powerful punch. Did the assailant have a prosthetic arm? she wondered as she dodged another punishing blow to the face. The assassin had reclaimed the hypospray. They wielded it like a shiv, aiming for any bit of exposed flesh below the face. The fluid must be administered intramuscularly, then, reasoned Athanyal. She ducked once more and rammed her knee into her assailant’s groin. The hypospray fell again to the floor; Athanyal crushed it beneath her bare foot, glass imbedding in the soft skin of her undersole.

Another pain.

Unfortunately, her assailant recovered quite quickly from the unsporting blow below the belt. Their kick to Athanyal’s sternum sent her stumbling out into the main hall, startling a junior healer on duty and disturbing the less injured situated on cots for overnight observation. On her rear, exhaling pain and inhaling serenity, Athanyal was prepared for the second kick from the assailant. The junior healer—a young Mon Cal female—scuttled backward with a startled cry at the shrouded individual’s sudden appearance, most likely to alert Temple security to the incursion, or the legendary Vokara Che, who would take this infiltration into her domain as not just an invasion into the very heart of the Jedi Order, but a trespass into her kingdom.

Athanyal didn’t know which was more terrifying.

Ducking below another punch, Athanyal slid below the defenses of the assailant, fist finding their throat. They choked as they backed away, clutching at their damaged trachea. But then they were on her again, delivering a punishing blow to the gut that had the blaster wounds on her hip and side crying out in agony. Rolling onto the floor, Athanyal struggled to gather breath into her lungs. Her ribs sang their own song of agony in the ever growing symphony in her body. She was flagging, failing —

_Scream, Jedi whore._

Inhale. Athanyal rolled backwards to her feet, gathering the sliding Force about her and weakly pushing the assailant backward into the room they had just vacated. Staggering to her feet, she had her fists up and ready for defense, feet in her natural Ataru’s defensive stance. She couldn’t keep this up much longer; many of the Jedi who were on cots were too injured to move—she was too injured to move. The assailant was surging forward, a miasmic entity of hatred and purpose. Where were the guards? Where was—

“Master Hu!” Athanyal didn’t turn towards the speaker. She merely extended her hand outward to accept the lightsaber that was thrown to her. Her grip adjusted—it was too big for her hand, built for that of a man’s, but she was used to dueling with a man’s lightsaber. It was ignited in nanoseconds, brought up to sever the assailant’s hand at the wrist as they came to meet her.

Again the being cursed. Athanyal could not place their voice as neither male nor female. Instead of coming forward to assail again—to her surprise and the surprise of the members of the Temple guard who had arrived through the main entry—the being sprung backward and began to climb the wall like an enormous, four-legged spider. Dumbstruck, Athanyal stood, lightsaber still ignited, as she watched the individual vanish through one of the many windows inset in the Hall’s ceiling.

Turning, exhausted to the soul from the ordeal, Athanyal was aware of the many eyes on her—the youthful Mon Cal Padawan, one her oldest friends standing with the Temple guard (he must be on duty that month), Master Vokara Che, who had been woken by the upstart, and the other injured Jedi who only numbered at six—and summarily deactivated the borrowed lightsaber. The blue blade disappeared as quickly as it had come. Guided by the Force—as muddy and difficult to gather as it was—she walked to the man who had allowed her to borrow it.

How fortuitous. She actually knew the owner of the blade.

“My thanks, Master Kenobi,” she said with a polite bow and a gentle smile.

The infamous Negotiator, her oldest friend, smiled mysteriously in return, eyes shadowed with something very close to concern. “You may want to attend to Master Vokara Che,” he said, voice bland with diplomatic neutrality. She caught the worried mental probe thrown in her direction and deflected easily. He wasn’t going to read her like that.

Nodding again, smiling faintly, she turned to regard the aged Twi’lek Jedi, grateful only that she had not touched Kenobi by accident. She didn’t think she could handle any sort of emotion that was not clamped down in her brain, drained as she was.

She feared she would faint.

“Master Vokara Che,” Athanyal said with a certain pleasantness that belied her pain. “What a pleasure this evening.” She gestured to the disturbed patients. “My apologies for the upstart.”

The revered healer merely regarded Athanyal with what she—if she were touching the woman—would name abject shock and barely concealed rage at the trespass committed today, not to mention the sheer gall of her most favored patient—sarcasm greatly intended—standing on her two feet, wringing sweat, and favoring no limb in particular because everything kriffing hurt.

“Master Hu,” she said, words carrying fearsome heat. “What is the meaning of this?”

Athanyal gestured weakly up at the open window high above their heads, where her almost-murderer had escaped, then at the hand on the floor, grasping at nothing.

“With your permission, I think I would like to be released immediately.”

 

* * *

 

 

Very few Jedi had ever stepped foot in the Temple’s highest tower before the Clone Wars. Accessible only by a single, isolated turbolift, guarded by the tall Temple Watchmen to whom she and her Master had belonged to, the Jedi High Council was literally elevated in its isolation. Perhaps, the early architects believed that the higher up one was, the more connected they were to the Force.

Athanyal stood in meditative silence beside her former Padawan in the glass encasement of the turbolift, eyes closed. Darrin said nothing; he knew his presence was a palliative request only. And not by his former Master’s request.

The silent alarm had gone through the Temple like wildfire. Darrin—who had succumbed to his fatigue after the battle of Tyrosh IV after being summarily banished from the Halls of Healing by Teru—had been roused by the sound of many footsteps running pell-mell down the quiet, carpeted halls of the senior apartments. That enough had Darrin scrambling, half dressed, to his feet, lightsaber in hand as he threw open his door and leapt into the fray. No one ever ran in the Temple, not even the youngest of the children.

“The Halls!” wailed a young Padawan. She was Mon Cal, a healer not situated for such an assault. She ran past Darrin, intent on taking the call up to the very heights of the Temple, if need be. “Master Hu’s dueling him now in the Halls!”

Oh, blast.

Confusion. That’s what he felt. And fear. It palpated the air, made younglings wail with it as he slid past the crèches; infuriated crèche Masters in sleepwear dueled shades veiled in shadow. Infants were carried and younglings barely out of their cribs were herded to safety by those yet to be apprenticed. But he could not stop; Darrin could not help his selfishness. The children were in capable hands. His Master needed him.

Individual duels broke out on the stairs, in the halls. Screams and shouts terrorized the air. It was mayhem, and all the while, Darrin wondered how such an invasion could have occurred under their very noses.

It was so, so frightening.

His bare feet had found the Halls of Healing, bursting in behind the Temple guard, just in time to see his former Master fall to her knees after addressing the undisputed ruler of this molested domain.

Somehow, she still managed to do so gracefully.

He reached Athanyal almost in tandem with the aged Twi’lek. Darrin sank to his knees beside his exhausted former Master, worriedly brushing ultramarine hair away from her sweaty, wan face. She did not respond to his touch; that frightened him.

“You will not leave these Halls until I say otherwise,” spat Master Vokara Che, voice acidic. “Foolish Jedi, you cannot even walk, and you wish to leave?”

The flinch was full body. On the air between them, a sinister whisper twisted the well-meaning healer’s volcanic words. Athanyal heaved out a breath, a quiet sob. Stripped of her defenses, she looked—sounded—like the broken thing Anakin Skywalker and Kiellan Faelleon had retrieved from Tatooine.

_Scream, Jedi whore. For I will never stop._

“Master Vokara Che,” said Athanyal haltingly. “This is not a matter of what I will do, but of what I must do.”

Without Darrin’s help, she climbed to her feet, and took off at a trudging pace towards the room she had been sequestered in. Helpless, he looked on, watched his former Master’s retreating back as Padawan healers and Temple guards parted around him. Pandemonium was never a word he would have associated with the Jedi Temple, but here he was at the very nexus of it.

He felt for Teru in the Force, found him resettling a recalcitrant Master Skywalker.

“The younglings are distressed,” he said, one eye on Teru, the other on an increasingly irritable Anakin Skywalker.

“Tell me about it,” snapped Teru. “Master Skywalker, I must insist—”

“And I’m telling you, Padawan Summ,” the man snapped back. “The Temple’s been attacked and I’m needed with the guards. A perimeter needs to be established—”

“They can get on well enough without you. Now settle down before I drug you!” Teru spared Darrin a look, one hand holding a healing crystal to a sluggishly bleeding wound on the Jedi Master’s back, the other pointing just over Darrin’s shoulder. “Catch up with your Master before she faints. Master Vokara Che might go apoplectic if she ends up back here.”

“Oh, so she’s allowed to leave,” came Master Skywalker’s snarky reply.

“If Master Vokara Che had her way, she wouldn’t.”

As it was, Darrin didn’t even want his former Master up and about. But he was the only way the healers would be able to keep tabs on his medically squeamish friend. So they rode the Council turbolift to the highest part of the Temple ziggurat in less than companionable silence; even at less than her best, Athanyal could sense her former Padawan’s motives.

“I’m not about to break, Padawan,” she said lightly.

Darrin scoffed. “ ‘Padawan’? Has senility befallen you, Athanyal?”

“You only wish. The last time you called me senile, you were sixteen and drunk. I would have had you reorganize the lower holobook halls without the assistance of Madame Nu’s droids in penance, but I figured your hangover was punishment enough.”

She could feel his wince in the Force. “Ouch, Master. Low blow.”

Now it was time for Athanyal to scoff. “ ‘Master’? Now who’s senile?”

The turbolift began to slow. Darrin regarded Athanyal, dutifully masked his fear for his former Master with tight control. She seemed diminished—he did not want to say broken. Could not say broken. Her hair was loose and wavy, half braided away from her face and fastened at the nape of her neck. There were dark shadows beneath her eyes; the almost black smudges made her eyes seemed even more clouded, a dark shade of pink that looked almost red. Her tunics were as pressed and neat as usual, elegance and refinement marred by white bandages wrapped tight around her upper arms and the scent of bacta that clung to her skin. Then there were the bruises, the remains of Corellia and Tyrosh IV and Bespin and Agamar and—

The turbolift opened; his former Master let out a heaving breath as he came to Tatooine in his mind.

She didn’t wait for him as she passed the unsmiling, masked faces of the Temple guard. The small turbolift was suddenly claustrophobic with memory. They did not speak of Tatooine. Darrin did not talk about the six months his former Master had been missing, and Athanyal supplied nothing to neither him nor the Council she served. Only Master Vokara Che knew the truth; occasionally, he saw the aged Twi’lek healer pale and grow quiet when her old eyes found Athanyal. Everyone treated the Brijeshi girl differently since she’d come home to them; her oldest, most coveted companions could not make headway with the tumult of emotion that lurked beneath his former Master’s skin.

He loathed being unable to help.

Swallowing more emotions than he cared to name, Darrin jogged to catch up with his remarkably quick former Master. The Temple guards gave her no trouble as she passed them; she was a Council member in her own right. But Darrin they stopped, yellow bladed ’sabers ignited and crossed before him, barring his path to his friend.

“Your business,” said the one on the left.

“I—”

“Master Binre is a key witness to the events that have just occurred,” supplied Athanyal, the lie coming off her tongue smoothly. Darrin had to admit, it sounded far better than “Master Vokara Che wouldn’t let me leave the Halls of Healing without my former Padawan babysitting me.”

It satisfied the Temple guard, that’s all that mattered. Settling back into place, ’sabers deactivating with a quiet hiss, they barely acknowledged him as he passed. He was content to do the same.

It was time to face the Council.

Athanyal had already taken her seat. The chairs were arranged in a semicircle, facing the entryway—the only point of entry for the Jedi Council. Outside the chamber, the Coruscanti sky was a riot of pinks and blues and oranges and reds; sunsets were always beautiful on the polluted city planet.

Of the twelve seats, only five were occupied; six holoprojections occupied their usual spaces. Master Kenobi was missing, sequestered in the Halls like his Master should have been. As it was, she was between the shade of Ki-Adi-Mundi and the imposing, regal form of Shaak Ti: a tiny, diminished thing who looked as out of place amongst the powerful men and women of the Order as a crècheling would have. Darrin felt himself grow faint; Athanyal Hu was slouching, curling in on herself with hissing breaths. It was a minuscule thing, noticeable only to him, and the wizened green Master seated in the direct center of the semicircle.   

His eyes found Yoda. The ancient Jedi Master looked at no one but Darrin, though a long, pointed ear was twisted in Athanyal's direction. Darrin felt himself shrink under the scrutiny; it had been a long while since he had been studied with such intensity.

“Hmm…” began Yoda, once Darrin had squirmed enough. “Smell it, you can. The dark side. Lives in the Temple now, it does.”

“The children are terrified,” counseled Oppo Rancisis. The Thisspiasian man scented the air, his thin reptilian tongue flicking in and out of his mouth thoughtfully. He was in charge of all the Temple’s crèches; of course he would look distressed. They had been attacked, and children—infants—had been hurt. “Many of the crèche Masters are having trouble calming them down, especially the youngest ones.”

“Twenty-six Masters were targeted,” continued Mace Windu, folded hands held before his mouth in a shockingly blatant display of concern. “Including four on the Council.” He looked toward Athanyal, who was intently studying Darrin with shadowed eyes. “Master Hu, do you recall what happened?”

Athanyal meditatively inhaled, settling back in her seat as if it hurt her. “I couldn’t feel them in the Force,” she said, “that’s what drew my attention at first. They were veiled in shadow—the cloak they wore seemed to swallow light. But they were trained, that much I can tell you.”

“Trained by us?” asked Ki-Adi-Mundi, his voice thin and wavering over the uncountable parsecs that lay between him and Coruscant.

“They were either entirely opaque in the Force, or an extremely talented Shadow.” Athanyal folded her hands between her legs and stared at her former Padawan. Her expression was unreadable.

“I have to agree with Master Hu,” said Mace. “I could not touch the attacker’s mind, but they could touch mine.” He looked at Darrin. “Binre, your thoughts?”

He looked up, confused. “Master?”

“Your thoughts, we would like to hear,” clarified Yoda sagely. “A direct attack was this? Or something greater. Young Hu, Master Windu, Master Billaba, myself: a direct attack was this? Or simple mistake.”

Darrin mulled over his words, ignored his former Master’s affronted look.

“I believe the possibility cannot be ignored,” Darrin said. “They attacked our children. They attacked our Masters. If this wasn’t calculated, or deliberate, then whoever’s done this has done a damn good job destabilizing us.”

“Destabilize the Order?” Saesee Tiin sounded startled. “Why would anyone want to destabilize the Order?”

“A lot of people—civilians, senators, politicians, even Jedi—are becoming more and more dissatisfied with what we’ve become,” said Darrin. “Warmongers, akks who serve the Chancellor and only the Chancellor. Perhaps this was a way to make sure we return to our roots: peacekeepers.”

”You believe a Jedi could have done this?” It was Shaak Ti who spoke this, montrails swaying with something similar to anxiety.

“It’s a possibility we cannot ignore, Master,” said Athanyal patiently. “We are not blind to the news, that opinion of the Order is at an all-time low, that our very way of life is being protested as barbaric and unseemly.” She sighed, voice heavy with an emotion Darrin was afraid to name. “Perhaps this is only the beginning.”

 

* * *

 

 

Three days later, Darrin was awoken in the dead of night by Athanyal’s agonized screaming in the room adjacent. He was at her side in an instant, the glow of his lightsaber washing his face and bare chest in teal light. He did not find blood, or injury on his Master as he threw open her door with the Force. Darrin instead found her curled upon her bed as if she’d been struck, with no assailant in sight, disconsolate in her private agony. At first, he believed it to be a nightmare—Tatooine had left its impression deep beneath Athanyal's skin. But the Force was thick with tragedy; this was no ordinary nightmare.  

“The younglings,” Athanyal sobbed, fingers clutching the fabric of Darrin’s sleep pants as he sat on her bed, torn between comforting and sedating. “The younglings, Darrin. The _younglings_.”

Darrin held his former Master, his friend, as she wept. And all around him, Athanyal’s wail was taken up as, floors below their feet, crèche-Masters held infants as they died.


End file.
